What Have You Done
by Artemisdesari
Summary: Seventh in the Hand of Sorrow Verse. Dean recovers, Cas worries, Lucifer plots. Now COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

_Another day, another fic. I know I was saying that the updates for this wouldn't be as sporadic as they were for the last one, but I have a slight family drama going on at the moment so you may need to stick with me on this. In other news, this is the second to last part of this verse and I have an idea for a follow on to it, but I need to know if you want it or not, let me know in the reviews you leave and I shall see what I can do._

_The song at the beginning and end of the chapters is "What Have You Done" by Within Temptation._

_**Disclaimer:** They are not mine. Nor is the song. They belong to talented and wonderful people who have left me with a rich toybox to play with._

What Have You Done

_**Would you mind if I hurt you?  
Understand that I need to  
Wish that I had other choices  
Than to harm the one I love**_

_**What have you done now?**_

Dean does not so much _scream_ during his withdrawal from the angel blood, more, he whimpers, lies in an old mouldering bed, curled on his side and trembles. Shakes and sobs and begs for more, just a little more, just to take the pain away and let him live, because this feels like dying and Dean knows what it is to die.

They have been hiding in this abandoned house for nearly two weeks, Katie is almost fully recovered from her concussion, with only the occasional headache, a fading bruise and a fresh scar to show for it. She has been lucky, she and Castiel both know that, because Lucifer could have taken her straight away, could have simply abandoned Sam's body and taken hers to use as his own and both are at a loss to explain why he would be playing with them in this way. In his more lucid moments Dean likes to say that it is because Lucifer is sadistic like that. Castiel prefers to think that it is an indication of Lucifer's pride, his arrogance.

Katie does not think on it, does not consider why Lucifer did not take her as his vessel there and then, does not ask why he let her go. She has only one concern, one need, to lock him away again so that she can go back to her life, back to who she was before all of this, even though who she was before was a no one, a nothing, just a waitress in a small town diner of the kind that Sam and Dean have probably seen thousands of, more than likely she has seen them, served them, and not remembered their faces. Just like they never would have remembered hers and she misses that life, the emptiness and hopelessness of a dead end job and a small house and a no good boyfriend who ate her food and drank her alcohol and beat her when he was drunk, the man she was too scared to leave, the man whose actions drove her to the desperation that caused her to agree to become a vessel. In spite of everything he did, part of her still longs to return to him, to that life and she cannot do it until Lucifer is locked away, the apocalypse averted.

She spends her days with her head in the book, reading and researching, calling all of Dean's contacts, calling Ellen, asking questions and trying to locate Lucifer through any means while Castiel cares for Dean. When the whimpers and the moans and the breathless little cries and screamed pleas get too much, Katie walks into the nearby town, a trip that can take her an hour on a bad day, buys essential supplies. On the way there she dwells on the distant past, wonders what her mother is doing, if she has moved on yet after the death of Katie's father. She thinks about whether her sister made it to college and how quickly Richard moved on after she disappeared. On the way home she thinks about the year she has lost, she thinks about Dean and the agony he must be going through, about Sam and the fact that Lucifer has trapped him inside his own mind with no control over his actions.

Sometimes she feels guilty, knows that she should be helping Dean and Castiel more, caring for Dean so that Castiel can have a look at the information she has found, can tell her if he thinks that it will work, but she is not comfortable with Dean, not like she is, like she_ was_ with Sam. She cannot forget, even though she knows that he was under the influence of Lucifer's blood, that he was the one who smashed her head on the bathroom sink, the one who gave her to Lucifer even if he had no other choice. So she avoids him, leaves his care to Castiel alone and feverishly works on trying to save the world because there is nothing else she can do except run.

Since their escape, Lucifer has upped his game, not a day goes by now when they do not hear of some new disaster, even though the non-hunting community have not made the connection, will probably never make the connection, at least not until it is too late and the world has imploded in fire and ash and blood. As bad as her life was, as bad as it has been the last eighteen months, she cannot stand by and let that happen.

SPN

Lucifer paces, agitated. It has been three weeks since his new vessel and his enemy escaped, three weeks and he still has not been able to find them. It seems that he is not the only one who is playing games here, not the only one who is toying with Dean Winchester and he longs to know what rules they are playing by.

So far he has met little resistance on the part of his former brethren, only minor angels who are easily swayed to his cause or killed through sheer superiority of numbers. There has been no sign of the archangels, no sign of the Seraphim or Powers or Thrones or any of the other higher angels and Lucifer feels that he should be meeting with more resistance than this, that his Father cannot be allowing the wanton destruction of his chosen children without sending his soldiers to deal with the problem.

He is still working with only a few demons, still causing as much destruction as he can with only those already free until he can release his lieutenants, the time having passed for the ritual he had wanted to perform and now he needs to wait, needs to wait until he has all the things he needs to try opening the gate and this time it is not just the blood of a mortal that he needs, be it a mortal man or woman, this time he needs the blood of an angel, an angel loyal to his Father and his former brethren.

This, of course, means that using Castiel is utterly out of the question, because the _feel_ of Castiel, the way that his grace sounded discordant even to Lucifer's ears, is completely wrong. Something happened to the lesser angel, Lucifer knows, something that has marked the angel and damaged him in a way that lessens him utterly and a part of Lucifer feels pity for him in that because even though he was locked up in Hell for thousands of years, it has not taken from him that which he is, an angel still even though he is blackened and tainted. Lucifer does not know _what_ Castiel is now, but an angel is not it, not a true angel, not even a fallen one who has been so far darkened as to be a demon, Castiel is something else entirely, something that make Lucifer nervous and curious in equal measure.

He turns his attention to the demon approaching him, Astaroth, who had finally decided to join him on the same day that Dean, Castiel and the new vessel had escaped. Unlike most of Lucifer's other lieutenants, she was not cast out simply because she refused to bow to mankind, she was cast out because she allowed them to _worship_ her as a goddess, a goddess of love and fertility and _war_ of all things, the polar opposite of the very things she had allowed herself to be the most revered for.

In truth, Lucifer has little time and very little regard for her, countless centuries in the pit have blackened her grace to the point that it is nothing more than a husk, a drowned and rotten indication of what she once was. She is a demon now, wholly and completely, little remains of the benevolent goddess she once mimicked. Unfortunately, she is also the only other demon of rank, aside from Lillith, who escaped the pit when the gate was opened two years ago and to release the Four Horsemen, Lucifer needs the presence of a prince, or in this case a princess, of Hell to speak the second half of the invocation. The other downside is that Astaroth _knows_ this, knows that Lucifer cannot free the Horsemen without her, and without the Horsemen, the sealed gates to Hell remain just that way, because even Lucifer is not foolish or prideful enough to try and capture an enemy angel without some significant back up this time. They will not all be like Castiel, broken and confused and alone.

Astaroth hesitates for a moment before she bends her knee before him, bowing her head and resting her hands palm down on the floor, uttering his name with a touch less reverence than he has come to expect, it draws a frown to the stolen face of Sam Winchester. When she turns scarlet eyes to his face, however, any indication of his reaction is gone and he wonders just how far she will push her impudence before she realises that after she has outlived her usefulness it will simply become an excuse for him to get rid of her. That thought is enough to bring a dark smirk to his borrowed face.

_**I know I'd better stop trying  
You know that there's no denying  
I won't show mercy on you now  
I know I should stop believing  
I know that there's no retrieving  
It's over now  
What have you done?**_

_Reviews are little Castiels that fly above our heads and mini Deans under the bed. A small Sam in hand and a tiny John by the chair, a review_ _that can show how much you care._

_Artemis_


	2. Chapter 2

_Ok, so I managed to get the next chapter up. For those who don't know, I'm writing between bouts of caring for my mum, who has become suddenly very ill. I'm sorry if it's not quite up to standard. I'm filling again, I know I am, but I also know where I'm going and I'm determined to get this arc done before the season starts._

_**What have you done now?**_

_**I, I've been waiting for someone like you  
But now you are slipping away  
What have you done now?  
Why, Why does fate make us suffer  
There's a curse between us  
Between me and you**_

Dean now has a new found appreciation for Sam and how hard it was for him to come off the demon blood, especially after the agony of his first detox, the detox he never finished. Thinking about his little brother hurts, rather like a knife to the gut, but it is a pain he would rather experience when compared to the anguish he is going through as he is reminded of all the things that he did in Hell, all the things he enjoyed doing to people playing out over and over before his eyes. Sometimes he is the one holding the blade, standing over the rack, more often that not he is the one strapped to it and days like that Cas has to hold him down physically because they have no restraints. It leaves Dean sore and bruised.

When he is lucid, which is growing more and more frequent as the days pass, he asks about the research, asks if they have found anything new or a way to get Lucifer out of Sam. It frustrates him that Castiel remains close lipped about it, makes him want to lash out at something, at anything but he does not, because he needs Cas, cannot take care of himself without him so cannot afford to push him away.

Sometimes he hears Katie moving about in the house, hears her singing softly as she cooks, because there is no way that Castiel is preparing the food that Dean sometimes manages to keep down when he is hovering over the hunter day and night to make certain that he does not hurt himself. Dean does not have to think about the reason that she does not come into his room, does not have to wonder at the way she stays just out of sight, knows that it is all down to the things he did while Lucifer was controlling him, will have to apologise, if she will let him, though apologies do not come any more easily now than they have in the past.

When Dean is not hallucinating or trying desperately to hang on to his more lucid moments, he is sleeping and he knows that Castiel takes those moments, those opportunities, to talk to Katie, for the pair of them to talk about whatever it is that she spends her days doing while Dean is in this room battling to regain what little remains of his humanity. Some days he hears them arguing about it, a power creeping into Castiel's voice more and more each day, almost as though caring for Dean has given him the purpose and distraction he needs to start to heal a little more, to start to use his grace more fully, even if he never gets it back properly.

This time when he wakes they are arguing and from the way that Katie's voice hitches and trembles Dean is fairly certain that she is crying. His lucid periods have been getting longer, his hallucinations less vivid and he hears them more now, their soft moments of, if not friendship, comradeship, quiet movements around the small, one bedroom cabin they have holed up in. Today, however, Castiel is angry and she is upset, though his words are spoken almost softly, only a little more hoarse than usual to show his feelings and Dean wonders when he came to know that angel so well.

"Lucifer is too well guarded," he hears Cas snap, the thump of something heavy hitting wood.

"We still have to try," the tremble is gone now, though Katie's voice still seems to catch. "For _his_ sake. He doesn't need me, he needs _Sam_. This will work, I know it will."

"He needs to become well again, it does not matter whether Sam is here or not, we cannot leave him." Castiel is insistent and Dean drags himself out of bed on his own for the first time in three weeks, frowning at how unsteady he feels and knowing that his recuperation is going to be more than just flushing the angel blood out of his system. "If we go after Lucifer now, without Dean, we will fail, we will die and we will not be there to aid him when the time comes."

Katie is silent at that and Dean wants to open the door and tell them that he does not need the support, does not need the help, is aware of how broken he is and how hard everything will be. He does not, because if the last few months have taught him anything, it is that without the support of others the world would be collapsing around his ears while he stared blankly ahead as nothing more than Lucifer's puppet. He stays quiet a moment longer, reaches his hand towards the door when he thinks that they have finished their conversation and pauses when she speaks again.

"The nightmares are getting worse, Castiel," Katie admits softly, almost too low for Dean to hear and suddenly he is intruding on something private, something he suspects that he should not hear. "Every night, ever since I found that book and I don't know why."

"Perhaps they are memories of Seraphiel's," Castiel suggests and even Dean can tell that he is not convinced of it, that Katie is not either because her laugh is bitter.

Dean has heard enough, he retreats from the door, returns to the bed and closes his eyes. Just the simple act of standing, crossing the little room to door and keeping silent has drained him of what little strength he has. He pinches the bridge of his nose and looks up when the door opens, Castiel stood there with a tray and a bowl of something hot and steaming and Dean feels his stomach lurch in hunger, has not eaten properly since this whole thing started and for one idiotic moment he thinks that is worse than everything else about the withdrawal.

"We woke you," Castiel comments as he hands Dean the soup, something bland with some sort of vegetables floating in it and it honestly has to be the most healthy thing that Dean has eaten in years, junk food at diners being easily more palatable than the limp salads and overcooked carrots and greens that Sam seems, seemed, to prefer. He all but falls into it in his rush to eat something, anything, and even though he knows that later, as soon as he hallucinates or fits again, he will throw it all back up, but he does not care, is tired of the empty feeling in the pit of his stomach and knows that it will take more than just a bowl of soup and a few more decent meals to fill it.

He shakes his head at Castiel's comment. Their conversation did not wake him so much as he had become aware of it as he had returned to consciousness. He does not mention it, his stomach beginning to hurt with the amount food that he has put in it even though it is less than a fifth of what he would usually eat. The angel notices and takes the tray from him, ignoring the scowl he receives in return, and they lapse into awkward silence, broken only by Castiel insisting that Dean lie down and rest and Dean protests against it, is afraid that if he sleeps he will have nightmares or fit or hallucinate again. Castiel is insistent, however, insists that Dean lie down, that he sleep again, because he will not be left alone to deal with the horrors that he will see in his mind.

SPN

After so many centuries in Hell, Astaroth had forgotten what it was like to have a human vessel, a human suit. Now into her second month in this particular fleshy sack she is beginning to wonder if the convenience of hands and arms and vocal chords is really worth it. Human hair is a bunch of aggravating fluff that cascades from the head, the skin is restricting and she finds it overly sensitive to the stimuli in the environment around her. At first it was a novelty, now she simply finds it irksome.

Still, there are some pleasures to be had from it all, Hell may have taken Astaroth's grace and turned it into darkness, but she has not forgotten the reason that she was sent to the pit in the first place, has not forgotten the adoration of the mortals who would flock to her temples to ask for her favour. Nor has she forgotten just how addictive it was, how intoxicating it was to hold the lives and souls of these humans in her hands, even knowing that their worship of her would damn them all to the circles of Perdition rather than allowing them access to Paradise.

Like Lillith and Azazel, Astaroth has her own part to play in the breaking of the seals and the beginning of the apocalypse. While the former were focussed entirely on getting their master _out_ of Hell, she was, is, focussed on what happens _after_ that. Her own tasks are no less important than theirs were. Fortunately her tasks do not involve oblivion in order to complete them. Her job has been to find the cage that contains the four Horsemen. To find out where Michael locked them away when he shut Lucifer up in his cag, not long before Astaroth was tossed into Perdition for her part in everything, for distracting the humans from her Father while Lucifer waged a war.

Finding the actual cage has been relatively easy in the grand scheme of things, figuring out the _key_ to the door has been a little more difficult. The two part incantation is only piece of it, it turns out, requiring sigils drawn in blood, the burning of plants that have been extinct for hundreds of years due to the human destruction that they are so very good at and a number of other little things that are difficult to find. She does not have long, however, to bring it all together, the hardest being finding an angel in the body of a child given that angels have no fondness for taking unwilling vessels, although they often keep them ignorant.

Eventually she finds all that she needs, an angel in the body of a blonde adolescent girl, Astaroth does not know how the angel managed to convince the child to take it in, she does not care, she has the angel bound in chains of iron cooled in the blood of demons and engraved with sigils and signs designed to hold angels captive and powerless.

They have only to wait two days, two days until all the circumstances are right and the Horsemen can be freed.

_**  
What have you done?  
What have you done now?  
What have you done ?  
What have you done now?**_

_Reviews are little Castiels that fly above our heads and mini Deans under the bed. A small Sam in hand and a tiny John by the chair, a review_ _that can show how much you care._

_Artemis_


	3. Chapter 3

_So i have a new aim, if I'm not going to get thoroughly Kripke'd by the time I'm done with the verse. I need to get a chapter up every other day. Fortunately the family drama has calmed down a little so that I can try and get it done. Reviews always help though!_

_**Would you mind if I killed you?  
Would you mind if I tried to?  
Cause you have turned into my worst enemy  
You carry hate that I feel  
It's over now  
What have you done**_

Katie shoots upright on the moth eaten sofa, the image of her hand dragging a knife across a child's throat still fills her mind and she shudders. They have been in this hovel, wasting time, for nearly a month. She cannot do this anymore, cannot hide and wait for Dean to get himself together. She needs to be out there, she needs to be fighting to get her life back, not listening to Dean have nightmares and Castiel question everything that he has ever known.

She flings the mouldering blanket off and over the back of the sofa, setting sock covered feet on the floor and pads from the sitting room to the kitchen, goes to the fridge and pulls out a carton of juice. As she leans against the sink and takes a drink, Katie considers the situation she now finds herself in. Dean is almost ready to go back out on the road. Almost, though she does not believe for a second that they will go after Lucifer straight away, no matter what she and Dean may want, because the hunter is in no condition to fight at the moment and Castiel is still concerned that Dean will relapse and make for the first dose of angel blood he can get.

The thing that makes Katie all the more eager to go after Lucifer, is the dreams. They are brutal, terrifying, filled with scenes of torture and horror. She fears sleep now, more than she fears death or even being taken host by another angel, though Castiel assured her that the brand on her chest makes it unlikely now, most angels will not want a host so tainted, with a mark that will cause them so much pain. She is also convinced that these dreams hold an element of truth to them, that they are not Seraphiel's memories but something that she left so that Katie would know what to do when the time was right. That time being now and Katie is more and more certain of that every day.

The house is silent, Castiel being the sort not to make too much noise and risk waking the humans that he shares with and Dean at the point now where he is no longer fitting or crying but not as strong as they would like. He still sleeps in the bed, at Katie and Castiel's insistence rather than his own wish, and Castiel still watches over him most nights, in case he relapses or something else goes wrong. It means that Katie is alone and she can go ahead with her own plan, even though she knows that it is madness.

It is the work of a moment for her to decide that she needs to leave now, that Lucifer needs to be stopped _now_, not when Dean is ready, because people are dying and everyday there is some new atrocity on the news. More reports of escalating violence and increasing demonic sightings, creatures, beings, who have remained hidden for so long for fear that hunters would return them to Hell, they have nothing to fear right now, Lucifer walks free.

She has been preparing for days, copying the incantation down so many times that she now knows it by heart. She still takes a copy of it with her, leaving the book containing the original with Dean and Castiel along with an address and strict instructions to return it to Norman should she not return, which is looking increasingly more likely. She has taken a great deal of care to prepare for the worst, though she is not certain anymore what the worst will be.

Her meagre collection of clothing, one spare pair of jeans, a few t-shirts and a cardigan, have been packed into a backpack. There is a .45 shoved down the back of her jeans and a silver dagger strapped to her left wrist with an iron one in the top of her right boot. She knows that when it comes right down to it, she is more likely to hurt herself than she is to injure or kill her opponent, still, she carries them anyway, for the comfort that they give her more than anything, is well on her way to becoming a hunter even though it is the last thing on her mind, the last thing that she intends to become.

The weight of her backpack seems greater than she knows it really is, made heavier by the way that she knows she is abandoning Dean and Castiel. Those two men who seem to appear, increasingly, to be unable to take care of themselves, the angel lacking experience and the man lacking the motivation. She puts the thought from her mind, straightens her shoulders, opens the door quietly and slips through, telling herself all the while that she should not let it bother her, that they should not be her concern when all they have brought to her is pain and fear and danger since Seraphiel abandoned her and left her disfigured and in agony.

That thought does not completely comfort her as she begins walking, still does not give her any relief as the sun begins to rise and still she walks, following some instinct that tells her where she needs to go, an instinct backed up by her own weeks of research, research that relies on the terrible dreams she has been having. She knows that there is something there, because her dreams have been of a real place in south Texas, a mausoleum and something in her _has_ to go there.

When she reaches the next town, she steals a car, starting it in the way that Dean taught her months before, drives until the gas runs out, abandons it by the side of the road and walks until she finds the next car to steal. The pattern continues, stealing and ditching and when sleep becomes necessary she does that in the car at the side of the road.

All told, the trip takes her four days, she has neither the seemingly endless fake credit cards that the Winchesters do nor does she have a back up driver, so when she needs to stop, she stops, sleeps if she can, walks when she cannot sleep or drive any longer. As it turns out, the final stretch into the small town is on foot, the car abandoned some six miles up the road.

What little money she has, what she has been able to steal or con out of others on her journey, is used to get herself a motel room for a few days, enough to get a decent nights sleep and get herself cleaned up before going after Lucifer. She is not sure what will happen after that, does not really care, she just wants everything to be over, the whole mess done with and if that means that she has to die, then so be it.

SPN

Castiel knows that he would be lying if he were to say that he has enjoyed most of his time on Earth since Dean rescued him from his own personal hell. He would also be lying if he were to imply that he has found a measure of peace and understanding that the has not had before. This role he has played in the last few weeks has compounded that. It has been hard, has been the role that a family member or close friend would normally take on.

The angel has never allowed himself to think of Dean in those terms, has never once believed that Dean would think of him in that way either. At the low points in their acquaintance he believes he has been, at best, to Dean, little more than a barely tolerated, dubious, ally. At the higher points he has merely been tolerated, barely trusted and the times that Dean has defended him have been only out of a sense of duty, debt and honour.

The last few weeks, however, he has been more to Dean than he ever should have been, the primary caregiver in a battle that is, in part, his fault. He has remained at Dean's side as the hunter has raged and stormed, wept and begged, laughed and screamed. It has made him wish dearly for the presence of Sam, particularly when he had bathed Dean, because there has been times when the hunter has been too out of it, too weak, to properly care for himself. Just the aid of another with the strength to help Dean has been longed for. Physical, because Katie has so very little, mental and emotional, because Castiel's own mental strength is still shattered under the weight of his own torments and he has never needed emotional strength before to have developed it.

Some days it has been all he can do not to weep with Dean, not to break down and sob, because Dean needs him to be strong even if Castiel does not completely know how to be. He alternates between anger at Katie for her lack of real assistance and admiration for her, knows that both the Winchesters and himself are nothing to her, she owes them nothing, not with the things that she has endured because of them, but she has stayed close, prepared food that even Castiel has eaten and kept her own council and silence as Dean has raged on well into the nights and through the days.

It comes as no surprise when he hears the front door click shut, soft feet treading lightly across gravel as she leaves them, the only surprise is that she has not done it sooner. He does not follow her, does not try to stop her, is aware, however, that he probably should wake Dean, aware that Dean _will_ want to stop her. So he decides to wait, to make sure that she has definitely left before he wakes the hunter.

For now, though, Dean is asleep and this night is one of the few nights, recently, that Dean has slept without violent nightmares. Castiel decides to take advantage of that, leaving the quiet room in silence, going into the living room and expecting to see the chaos of a hasty departure. What he sees is a blanket flung haphazardly across the back of the sofa and the old book that Katie has spent her days studying on the coffee table, otherwise the room is as neat as she had been able to make it. Of her other belongings there is no sign and that makes Castiel frown, evidently she had been planing this for far longer than he thought.

He settles onto the abandoned couch, picks up the book and glances once at the instructions she has left written and folded inside, pushes them into the pocket of his jeans for later and turns his attention to the elderly tome. Curious as he has been about the touch of grace on it and the incantation that she claims to have found within, the angel has had rather much more on his mind, rather much more on his hands, and he has not been able to investigate. Now, however, he has a quiet moment and he settles down to read through it, quickly finding the page that she has poured so devotedly over.

What he finds there makes him shudder. That grace which seeps through the paper is stronger here, at it's strongest, and even though his own grace is broken and lying in shards within him, he can still see what Katie could not, can see that the writing, the words that explain the incantation, have been tampered with. Certainly, this will cast an angel out of his vessel, but unlike the implications of the words above and below, it will weaken him only, it will not lock him in any cage, leaving her wide open and vulnerable to an angry angel, fallen or not, in it's purest form.

His last thought as he drops the book on the floor is that they have to catch her, they have to find her, they have to stop her.

_**What have you done now**_ _Reviews are little Castiels that fly above our heads and mini Deans under the bed. A small Sam in hand and a tiny John by the chair, a review_ _that can show how much you care._

I, I've been waiting for someone like you  
But now you are slipping away  
What have you done now?  
Why, Why does fate make us suffer  
There's a curse between us  
Between me and you

_Artemis_


	4. Chapter 4

_So now this one also draws to a close, and I am that much closer to completing this arc of this verse. There is only one fic left to go and it will be over for this bitThe big question now, is do I continue with the next arc? Let me know._

_Again, I want to thank readers, reviewers and alerters! Hopefully I will see you all at the next and final part (Hallejulah)_

_**What have you done?  
What have you done now?  
What have you done?  
What have you done now?**_

I will not fall  
Won't let it go  
We will be free  
When it ends

Astaroth and Lucifer have planned everything as much as they can, down to the last detail. There is still much of this venture that relies on chance, Lucifer's forces stretched thin, too few on this side of the gates to adequately deal with the armies of Heaven, though the forces committed by Michael and his brothers are far fewer than either of them had expected. They take the gift for what it is, use their forces, expendable once the Horsemen are free because with their aid the gates can be opened and the full might of Lucifer's forces can be unleashed.

Mighty those forces are, Astaroth may think many things about Lucifer and not many of them are nice, none of them are, actually, it being far beyond her to think in pleasant terms these days, not since several decades after she was banished to Hell, but still, she can admit that Lucifer's forces are impressive now. She has taken advantage of that, turned some few to her own cause, her own needs. There is too much here to manipulate, too much to control, but keeping track of it is a challenge and one that she welcomes.

Thing of it is, she has discovered that this spell they need to open the door requires a third part, a _human_ part, because the Horsemen cannot be unleashed, the world cannot be ended, without the humans giving it away at every turn. A human to break the first seal, a human to shatter the last, a human to unleash the agents of the end days. She finds it somewhat poetic.

She has been playing this game for many millennia, been manipulating mankind since she realised that they _could_ be manipulated. Astaroth is good at this, at getting humans to do what she needs them too without them realising that they are. She had recognised the uses of the girl Lucifer had captured as soon as she had seen her bound in that room, the closed seal at her breast, the fear and desperation in her heart, the stench of an archangel all over her, the feel of death within her and ancient magic on the edge of her mind. With this one she did not have to do anything, she will play her part, the only thing that bothers Astaroth is the question of who else is playing the game, wants to know who is working from the other side to make this happen because they have an agenda and she wants to know what it is.

With no way to find that out, and no way to make Lucifer understand that they would be better trying to open another gate, to release more of his forces before going after the Horsemen, to have more demons at his side to protect them, because once they are deep within the ritual there will be no going back, no stopping it from happening. Once it is started, it is completed, or both will suffer grave consequences, possibly even perish, Astaroth cannot allow that, has laboured too long over the years to allow herself to be stopped in this manner.

SPN

Dean is not happy when Castiel wakes him, this is the first time in too long that he has been able to get a good nights sleep and the angel has taken that from him. His displeasure at being woken is soon turned into anger that Castiel did not try to stop Katie and then the resigned admission that, like the angel, he is only surprised that it has taken her this long to pack her bags and leave.

As much as he would like to allow her the freedom of living her own life, of returning to her world and doing the things she has always done, and he feels a twinge of guilt at the fact that he really knows nothing about her past, he cannot allow her to go out there and start trying to take care of Lucifer all on her own. It is not her job, not even really her problem, and at the end of the day, the Winchesters started this whole mess, at least one of them has to be responsible for fixing it.

They do not speak as they pack up the car, moving around each other with the ease and familiarity of long practice. They may not have the ability he and Sam do, to read intentions and opinions in a moment, but they are getting there, Castiel able to convey more these days with a single glance than he can with words.

It has not escaped Dean that Castiel talks almost as little now that he is stuck somewhere between angel and human as he did when he was full of grace and righteous anger and holy wrath. For a group of beings who are supposed to be like marble statues, the angels sure do seem to show a range of emotions between them, if a little stunted and centred around only one or two. Dean thinks that they could stand to learn something from Castiel, from the angel's gentle compassion even in the face of all the things that were done to him, because he knows, without knowing how, that Lucifer wanted Castiel to join him, another angel on his side, one broken and bloody and mistreated, one who could be a symbol to the other angels of _Lucifer's_ compassion. Knows that it was only Castiel's concern for _him_, his sense of duty, even after his ability to perform that duty had been stolen from him, that gave him the will _not_ to turn to the side of the Lightbringer.

They have an advantage here, however, because Castiel suspects that he knows what Lucifer is planning to do next, because after reading that book, he revealed that he had felt some recognition for the demon who had allowed them to escape from under her nose, tells Dean that she was more than able to stop them and so must have had a reason for letting them go, not that he can think of any. Explains as the car speeds along the road that Astaroth is a fallen angel, one of the few who knows where Michael locked the four who will enable Lucifer to break open all the gates to Hell and bring the Apocalypse about properly. Castiel knows as well, because he was there, a guard at Astaroth's side, though unnoticed in the grand scheme of it all, too low to be much assistance.

The world has changed since then, but Castiel has a rough idea of where to find it, of the direction to head in, he only hopes that as they get closer he will be better able to detect the seal that holds them in place.

They do not catch up to Katie, are working on the assumption that this is where she is headed, but deep within, both know that they will not catch her, that they will be too late, and both feel that like the stab of a blade. Dean wants Sam back, of course he does, but he is not willing to sacrifice the life of an innocent woman, one who never should have been involved in this, to get him back.

When they arrive almost four days later, they know that they are too late, arrive in time to watch Katie enter a graveyard. Castiel pulls his bow from the compartment under the front seat, having confirmed that it was still there not long after they had hidden from Lucifer. It is an advantage, however small, and it is all that they need.

SPN

It is raining when Katie gets out of bed and dresses for what she knows could be her final day as the person she has come to know herself as, living, dead or otherwise. It does not feel any different to a normal day, even the nerves that have fluttered through her over the last few days have gone, leaving behind only a steely resolve to do what she feels is right and what she feels is necessary.

If she thinks about it, and later she will, she would realise that the total lack of demons around the graveyard is suspicious, that she should have been approached and stopped long before she reaches the mausoleum door. She is not challenged, although that does not matter, the walls of the building are decorated in blood, symbols painted all over and the body of a child has been discarded by the door. It is almost enough to make her turn tail and run and as she retches against the smell and the sight she is glad that she did not have breakfast before she left.

She creeps through the hall, attention focussed entirely on the sound of chanting from up ahead, does not notice the figures who sneak out behind her and shut the door, does not hear the click of a lock. Katie pauses when she reaches the door, glances through. The room contains only two people, a woman and Sam who is not Sam, Lucifer.

Fortunately, the incantation requires very preparation, and all of it revolves around the caster rather than the intended target. Holy water is poured on the floor, in an intricate pattern that it took her days to perfect in the overgrown muddy drive of the hut they stayed in, and a circle of salt laid carefully around it. She stands in the centre of the circle, reciting the words loud enough to be heard over the joined chanting, feels the ground beginning to shake beneath her and sees the back of Lucifer shudder.

The woman completes her incantation before Lucifer does, she turns to look at Katie, eyes flashing red in the half darkness of candle light and magic that now lights up one wall with something that looks almost like a devils trap. It casts an eery light over her, makes Katie falter, breaks her concentration long enough for her to hear the door break and Dean's shouting as he cuts into demons who did not stop her, but will stop him, hears Castiel calling for her to stop, but Lucifer is beginning to draw himself upright, where he had started to go down on his knees, and she is close, so close, she cannot stop, she will not and she raises her voice again as Lucifer screams out the last words of the incantation, wind blowing out of nowhere as he is ripped from Sam.

Her shout or triumph is cut short by cold hands, one over her mouth, one at her neck, the woman with Lucifer has taken hold of her and too late she realises that the sudden gust has blown her salt circle out of place and she is surrounded by nothing more than dried holy water, which evidently does not bother a demon of this level.

"Let her go, Astaroth!" Castiel shouts, his bow drawn and power filling his voice. Behind Katie the fallen angel laughs, orders the few demons still standing to kill them both, and the human woman's gut clenches as they both vanish.

In the mausoleum, the gate to the prison that contains the Horsemen continues to split open, the last demons, aware that they have been abandoned, fall quickly to Dean's knife and Castiel's bow. When the final one is dead, when the human and angel have a moment to breath they realise just how much danger they are in, pause for just long enough to grab Sam and abandon the building, driving as fast as they can away, not caring where, as long as it is away.

They have failed again, Castiel knows, now, that there is only one thing that they can do. Lucifer has to die.

_**I, I've been waiting for someone like you  
But now you are slipping away  
What have you done now?  
Why, Why does fate make us suffer  
There's a curse between us  
Between me and you**_

_Reviews are little Castiels that fly above our heads and mini Deans under the bed. A small Sam in hand and a tiny John by the chair, a review_ _that can show how much you care._

_Artemis_


End file.
